Sexuality In Art And Real Life Relationships

I watched the 2012 film“Nobody Walks”this evening. As the title may imply, the heavy-handed, fairly one-sided moral of that story is: If you have sex with people other than the only person you’re supposed to be having sex with, you’ll likely get caught, feel guilty, and your relationship will suffer from your infidelity.

As you might imagine, the film is a real downer and IMDB users fittingly give it only 4.9 out of a possible 10, and the Rotten Tomatoes’ audience gives it only a 29% rating – ouch.

Why am I commenting on this poorly-liked and poorly-received film?

I guess I’m bothered when any storyteller tells multiple stories with such a heavy-handed negative, similar portrayal.

To understand “Why people ‘cheat’,” it is important to consider how unhappy or unfulfilled many people are. People would not take on such great risks, risks they know few walk away from free and clear, if they also did not have such strong desires to connect with others on sexual, intimate, and social levels.

Sure, “nobody walks” and everybody gets caught. Yet, maybe the more interesting story is that most people know that before they choose to “cheat.” And nevertheless, they choose to try to connect intimately and sexually with others.

If that is true, it suggests to me that humans’ desires to connect socially, intimately, and sexually are stronger than many people may give them credit. And many people knowingly prefer to be guilty rather than innocent, preferring the pursuit of connections, over feeling disconnected.